MR and RW, leave the Constitution alone!

by Fr J.C. Pieris

(July 16, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The two most incompetent and unqualified people in Sri Lanka to either amend the old Constitution or formulate a new one for our country are Mahinda Rajapaksha (MR) and Ranil Wickramasinghe . Let me be very frank. They say love is blind but the yearning desire for power is blinder. They are blinded by greed for power and more power. Newspapers say the two are discussing amendments to make the executive president an executive prime minister. What's the difference? Don't play the fool. We can see through both of you.

I plead humbly with both of them to leave the Constitution alone. It is not your responsibility or your private affair. You should leave that job to the Constitutional Council. Immediately appoint the people who have been suggested by the politicians of various parties to the Constitutional Council and set it up with the mandate, as promised by all the parties, to abolish the executive presidency and formulate a better Constitution for the country once and for all burying this arrogant stupidity of JR. Then let the CC present the draft to all the parties and the public for discussion and deliberation and collect all the suggestions, opinions and ideas for further refinement of the draft. Then let the final draft be presented to the Parliament for 2/3 majority assent and to the people for a referendum.

MR and RW have other work to do. In May I wrote to this paper an article titled 'Shame' about the pathetic plight of many of our housemaids working in the Middle East. More than one woman a day is massacred and the mutilated bodies are brought back to our country. This is the responsibility of MR and RW. Let them do something about this tragedy. Let them pass a law prohibiting sending unprofessional women workers abroad. Thus saving, our women, their families that otherwise go to ruin without their mothers and our national self respect. Let them find work for the husbands of these mothers instead of giving employment to the Indians and Chinese workers. Let them see to it that the rule of law is applied impartially in the country. Let them create jobs for people who will soon be out of work when the GSP+ is stopped. Let them find means to bring down the cost of living and raise the salaries. Let them stop dengue deaths, drug trafficking, illicit felling of forest trees and killing of poor wild elephants and so on. Let them put some order into the educational mess which Minister BG is making messier by giving admission powers to principals, which is like, as we say in Sinhala, giving ladders to jumping monkeys. The health sector is no better in spite of the empty rhetoric of the minister. These are the genuine responsibilities of MR and RW. But it is exactly those that are utterly neglected and to cover up their failure they make a big fanfare about UN or Sarath Fonseka or Wimal Weerawansa or amendments to the Constitution, which is not their job at all. By playing ball with the president RW is guilty of negligence of his duties as the leader of the opposition. He should be bringing to the notice of the parliament the deteriorating conditions of the country again and again and not be worried about the powers of his putative future post.

All I have to tell MR and RW is this: Leave the Constitution alone, do not touch it. But immediately appoint the suggested people to the Constitutional Council and set them to work. And please get back to your genuine duties by the people who placed their trust in you. Think of the people first, last and always. Ask yourself why mothers throw their children live into rivers. Why mothers take the terrible risk of slavery, rape, torture and death in the Middle East. Why robberies and thefts are increasing. Why there is no fair play in the country. Why suspects die in Police Stations. I can go on indefinitely, but these are the responsibilities of MR and RW and not Constitution making.